A website shows information: fixed pages you read, like a brochure. A web app does something: it takes input, remembers data, and responds, like a booking tool or a dashboard. The difference matters because an app needs a database, logins and more careful hosting, so it costs more to run and more to keep safe.
Information current as at 5 July 2026
People use "website" and "app" loosely, but the difference is real and it decides how much your thing costs to run, how it needs to be hosted, and how carefully it has to be secured. Knowing which you built tells you what you are actually dealing with.
A website is something you read. It presents fixed information, pages about your business, your services, your contact details, and every visitor sees essentially the same thing. A web app is something you use. It takes what you type or click, does something with it, and often remembers it: a booking system, a customer portal, a dashboard, a calculator that saves your results. The line is whether the thing mainly shows you information or mainly acts on your input. If it has a login, saves your work, or changes based on who you are, it is an app.
It matters because apps are heavier in every sense. A website can be served as fixed files, which is cheap, fast, and simple to host and secure. An app has to run code and store data, so it needs a database, a place to run that code, and careful handling of the secrets that connect them. That means it costs more to host, has more that can break, and, crucially, has a much larger surface to secure. A brochure site leaking is embarrassing; an app leaking can expose customer data. The same casual build effort carries very different risk depending on which you have.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Ask a few questions about your thing. Can someone log in? Does it save anything they enter and show it back later? Does it take payments, or connect to another service? Does what a visitor sees change depending on who they are? A yes to any of these means you built an app, even if it looks like a simple site. If it is purely pages of information with maybe a contact form that just emails you, it is a website. Many people who built with AI are surprised to learn the "site" they made is actually an app, with all the extra responsibility that implies.
A website mostly needs a domain, a static host and SSL, and then attention to content and being found. An app needs all of that plus a hosted database, secret keys handled safely, logins that actually protect accounts, and a real look at data privacy, especially if it holds anything about customers. If you built a website, going live is largely the launch steps. If you built an app, going live safely is a bigger job, and it is the point at which a lot of people realise they want a hand making sure the foundations are sound before real users arrive.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Whether you can name exactly what you want built, or you just know something is leaking, the next step is the same conversation.